


Incomplete Travesty

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki Gaiden
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 08:01:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Konzen couldn’t remember how these fits, these unnatural spasms began, though he could always remember the results very clearly: the wild pinnacle, the ecstatic release, the last shuddering breath before blanking out. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incomplete Travesty

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the old Livejournal valentine_smut Saiyuki giftfic exchange community. Much gratitude and delight for Whymzycal's andkispexi2's betas!

Konzen couldn’t remember how these fits, these unnatural spasms began, though he could always remember the results very clearly: the wild pinnacle, the ecstatic release, the last shuddering breath before blanking out.

They had just shared a kiss so hungry his mouth felt swollen and aching in its aftermath, a phantom sense of the dragon lingering. He wanted it that way, stamped upon his skin, imprinted in memory.

“I want the day—no, I want a week of you.” Goujun had threaded talons through the silken gold along his scalp and slowly contracted, bending his neck gently back so that vibrations from the murmur next to his ear sent tremors shooting down to the soles of his feet. His wrists, bound with his own hair ribbon, were hoisted upward and fastened to bronze candelabra above his head. The dragon had transformed into his natural form just long enough to carry it up and thread it through the ornamental cutwork. This kept him from thrashing around enough to pull the ceiling down, yet forced his back to hold a stretch, muscles tensed, tendons pulling, a light sheen of sweat slicking his skin. He felt Goujun dart a tongue along the surface to taste the salt. Konzen instinctively leaned into it, straining further. There was nothing more dangerous—at this time and place, under these sets of circumstances, and with this person—than being trussed with ribbons, a captive. That’s what made it so good. Konzen barely caught the murmur, “I want another year, another life …”

* * *

Boredom, not heat, had led to an impromptu skinny-dip. The sky was the same cloudless peacock blue as always; the forest ever verdant; articles of scattered clothing dotted the grassy banks like rain-sodden, misshapen flowers. Only Goujun and Konzen stood like columns—one white, one gold, both tall and straight—while the other adolescent gods dove and splashed.

Konzen resisted stealing curious glances at the odd newcomer. If the dragon prince also resisted the same impulse to size him up, there was no indication. His unusual appearance and stiff mannerisms heightened Konzen’s sensitivity to his presence. They weren’t even the same species, and the differences were very clear in their looks, but there was something so familiar about the dragon king—as though they knew each other—because they were essentially alike. A shared sense of duty, perhaps? Konzen wasn’t sure. He saw something of himself reflected in the dragon king.

“What’s with you guys?” Konzen was roused from his thoughts by the voice at his feet. Zenon clung to the side of the pool, pink hair even more spiked than usual for being wet. “Are you coming in? Or are you just going to stand around and gawk at us?”

“Don’t you want to swim?” Shien asked.

“Not particularly,” Goujun replied.

Konzen snorted. Next to the waters of the western sea, the dragon prince’s domain, this pool had to look pretty dull.

* * *

“Why did you tell them it was the first time we had ever met?” Konzen’s voice sounded sulkier, more dredged in gravel than ever.

A razor talon came out and traced a cord along the kami’s neck, dangerously close to the vein. Muffled explosions and distant thumps made windows rattle and broadcasted Kenren and Tenpou’s progress deep within the palace. Konzen shivered.

Goujun pulled away long enough to grab a scroll off the shelves, peel the paper off its smooth bamboo shaft and dip the shaft in lamp oil. The oil wasn’t particularly clean, but Konzen could almost hear his thoughts: it wasn’t going to matter. They would be lucky to last the day.

“You wanted me to explain?” He leaned in close and drew the pads of his fingers down Konzen’s abdomen, tracing the shapes of muscles, slowly, evenly, delicately. Konzen’s hips loosened and sagged under the touch. Then Goujun’s fingers closed around him and stroked, once, twice, until his breath felt ragged and his eyes started to dim.

“You wanted me to say, what? Hello, you only know me as your former commanding officer, but ever since we were teenagers, your friend and I have been meeting secretly.” Goujun carefully eased the slender, greasy bamboo into Konzen, eyes reflecting how much he enjoyed the kami’s hiss and the tension of strained muscles. “For long … slow … and deep …”

“Quit farting around and just do it!” Konzen cried with frustration. “I’m not some spoiled hothouse flower, no matter what you say.”

Goujun simply worked the bamboo in slightly wider sweeps—not ideal, but better than the alternative. It was almost impossible for either of them to be patient under the circumstances, and Konzen began to sway his hips in languid circles.

“After all this time, still reckless.” The dragon spoke more quietly than usual. Konzen knew the volume of his voice was directly inverse to the emotions he wasn’t voicing. There was too much left unsaid. It was too late to say it. There was no time left.

* * *

He never guessed that landing in the goddess’ lily pond would disperse his mind across the solar system in one fell supernova of an explosion. There, in that inky and frigid sea, he aimlessly drifted apart and started drowning—unable to move by his own will, unable to link a single thought to another, spread too far and too thin for even the instinctual functions of his mind to synthesize. His individuality appeared to be dissipating. He couldn’t perceive the slightest particle of light; he was lost and dying. That was the end.

Suddenly, an exceedingly strong hand had gripped his collar, and he felt all the scattered constituent elements of himself gathering back together in a rush. He was hauled out by the scruff of the neck by the dragon prince himself and then dumped onto smooth, white tiles. He felt, smelled and probably looked more like a bedraggled rat than a god, coughing up water and drenching the walkway, and his eyes were wholly dazzled by the sun which stood directly behind Goujun.

And was the dragon prince ever pissed! Konzen had never seen anyone more magnificent.

“Where the hell did you get off ignoring Kanzeon’s laws and helping yourself to a bath in another dimension?”

From what it looked like, all the other brat-gods had scattered when Konzen didn’t resurface, except this heir to the kingdom of the western seas.

“What do you mean?” Konzen was no pushover. “The terms were I jump into the pond. I did. Dare fulfilled. End of story.”

“The dare was for you to swim across the lily pond.”

“That’s impossible.”

“For you.”

Konzen wasn’t able to read Goujun’s expression. It wasn’t smug; he didn’t look like he was revelling in Konzen’s humiliation. Nor was it contemptuous. “How the hell was I supposed to fulfil a dare like that?”

“Your methods were too reckless. There is always another way. You didn’t stop to think. You just acted, impulsively.”

“Given that I’m not a dragon and cannot swim across that pond, O Lord High-and-Mighty, what should I have done?”

“I shall overlook your insolence this once, but by swimming in the company of a dragon.”

“A dragon? Like you? Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Yes, a dragon; yes, like me; and no, dragons are not centered in the heart, but I would’ve been open to negotiation.”

“You wanted a bribe.”

“Bribes? There are only two times in the cycle of a god’s existence when dragons feel obligated to help with such a crossing, and this afternoon was not one of them.”

Konzen wanted to wipe the complacent look off Goujun’s face. Instead he picked himself up from the tiles, brushed off a weed and said, “Ain’t hindsight a bitch!”

* * *

Distant shouts and explosions sounded through the open windows from well beyond the walls. An ungodly howl rose from deep in the palace—something unnatural and grotesque in its death-throes—followed by the distinct thump of a room collapsing in on itself. The general and field marshal seemed to be pulling down the very pillars which held up the palace.

Far away from the rebels, within the stacks there were only Goujun’s quiet words and Konzen’s ragged breathing.

Konzen hooked a leg around Goujun and dragged him forward until they met, hip-to-hip. He swiped his tongue under the king’s jawline, leaving a long, wet trail, and then growled in his ear, “Too much talk. Not enough action.”

He ended the comment with a hiss of shock and discomfort. The room seemed to roll as his thighs were hoisted up; his wrists, arms and shoulders were forced to bear his weight until he was settled onto Goujun’s waist. The candelabra let out a disturbing creak, matched with an equally disturbing moan from the Seiten Taisei’s unconscious body from where it lay between stacks of books, as though ready to return to sensibility at any moment. The stretch took forever, as the dragon king held him close. He could feel the thump of their hearts in synchronicity.

Who would have thought there would be so much peril in a single motion? Everything was precarious: the stretch, the painful weight upon his wrists and shoulders, the danger of the ceiling coming down upon them, the even more immediate peril of the Seiten Taisei waking up, the heavenly armies bursting through the doors. Konzen was wound so tight, it felt like the slightest snap could rive the palace. Goujun had the good sense not to tell him to relax. It was all he could do not to pull the place apart. Then Goujun pulled back and looked him full in the face, his composure concealing nothing of the gravity he clearly felt.

With a roll of his hips, he started to move.

* * *

They had become lovers during such a distant past that only the slightest fragments of memory came to Konzen when he sat in silence with his thoughts: a hillside of white, star-shaped flowers, a boat with red silk cushions and red silk sails, the ululations of a flute. The emotions connected with these half-remembered things were a mystery to him such that he couldn’t quite understand why the sight of a silk lantern in the shape of a crow brought up stifling rage, or how a celadon-green jug with the kanji for Happy New Year filled him with a sentimental happiness. He remembered the first time they met and the first time they fought, but the only remembrance he had for their first kiss was a single, almost-painful leaping of the heart. He felt it thud, like vast portals into another dimension swinging shut.

As the centuries progressed, their trysts became fewer and farther between, especially after Goujun became the dragon king. They were both dutiful in their lines of service, but those lines seldom intersected. It was possible that Konzen’s attention to detail became just that extra bit more emphatic because of boredom and neglect, until his vision had narrowed to the square corners of a page and the red ink of a court seal.

Then, with but a single command from Kanzeon to be the source of light and life for Goku, continuing to exist in Tenkai as he had for hundreds of years became at once unbearable.

Konzen knew Goujun understood fully why he had to leave—in fact, he approved. There was urgency and focus in every movement, every sigh, every gift of touch and taste in their last tryst. And afterward, when they collapsed together, Goujun untying the ribbons with one powerful tug and supporting him as they dropped, as hungry for each other as when they had begun. Konzen was resigned. They would never have enough. For the first time in his life, he clung to the dragon king, conveying all his unspoken feelings through the force of that single gesture.

“I will follow you,” Goujun vowed. “This is not forever.”

“It’s a pact.” Konzen allowed the warmth of his companion’s chest to fill him, and until Goku stirred, he refused to release him.

It was Goujun who pulled away at last.

“It’s time.” Goujun finally pulled away.

Konzen nodded. “Time.”

_-fin-_


End file.
